Shaman's World

_The
world of the shaman is one where everything is alive. Animals, plants,
even rocks and crystals are believed to have spirit and can communicate
with the shaman. The shaman speaks to the
spirit of the mountains, and to the sea, to Mother Earth and Father Sky.
There is nothing in the world of matter that is inert to a true shaman.
Everything has spirit and everything is alive, everything is part of
that one Great Spirit that created this world and all therein. But a
shaman is not restricted to the world of matter, not even to the spirit
part of the material universe, but the shaman also has access to another
unseen world, the world of spirit, the Otherworld, which remains
forever invisible to ordinary mortals. To a shaman this invisible world
is just as real as the world of matter is to the uninitiated worldly
man, in fact the Otherworld is more real to the shaman! It has been said
that a shaman stands with one leg in this world and with the other in
the world of spirit. A shaman has access to both worlds and goes from
one to the other with total ease.

A shaman is a walker between worlds!

_To access the Otherworld the shaman needs to enter into a trance state which can be achieved with the help of a drum,
a rattle, or various other methods. The shaman journeys in the
Otherworld with her spirit body. The Otherworld is a place of great
potential, of empowerment, knowledge and of healing! To promote healing within themselves
or in others shamans change things in the Otherworld or get information
from various spirit beings residing in the Otherworld. To a rational
mind person, caught in the illusion that this world of matter is not
only real but the only reality, this may sound like utter nonsense. But
to a shaman the Otherworld is the underlying reality of this world and
everything that happens in the Otherworld has an effect on physical
reality and thus makes perfect sense. A shaman is beyond the illusion of physical reality!

_To a shaman all life is interrelated, everything is
connected. The Great Spirit may convey a message via an animal that
appears to a shaman, a plant along the way, even the formation of
clouds or the shape of a pebble or through visions.
Shamans are very good at interpreting omens. What worldly people see
as superstition to a shaman is a message from Spirit. Nothing that
happens is a coincidence, everything has meaning. A shaman meditates on
the meaning of seemingly random events and understands what Mother
Nature wants to tell her in the little things that happen every day.
There is great wisdom in the animal, plant and mineral kingdoms and the
shaman knows this.

In this place I would like to tell you a little anecdote that happened to me and a friend of mine:

The Clever Fox

_We were going to the airport to attend a medicine ceremony
abroad. We left my home village in the early morning hours. I was
driving. As we came out of the village, in a place where I had never
seen any animals besides the local cats, a fox crossed the road! It
crossed from right to left – only it wasn't on four legs but on two, and
it didn’t actually walk or run, I swear it danced! The fox crossed all
the way to the other side, dancing on its hind legs. Meanwhile I had
brought the car to a halt. The fox reached the other side, but instead
of running into the bushes, turned around and crossed again, still
dancing on two legs while looking straight at us! It was totally unreal!
When it reached the right side of the road, it turned once more and
danced back on its hind legs. Three crossings on two legs while
performing its strange dance! I had never seen an animal behave like
this in my whole life.

While my friend
exclaimed over and over how cute the fox was, I immediately knew it
wanted to tell us something very important. I knew it was a warning and
that we had to be clever. I was sure I had packed and even triple checked all my papers, but what about my friend? So I asked her “have you got your
passport, your money, your driving license?” My friend assured me she
had it all and held them up in the dark. I was still puzzling over the
incident when we reached the airport about four hours later. As it
turned out my friend’s passport had expired and she wasn’t permitted on
the flight. I had to take my scheduled flight while she had to go to the
nearest city hall, get an extension, and finally took a later flight
which cost her over £200! Obviously her entitieswere trying to prevent her from going to the medicine ceremony, where
they would be removed! As we were separated I couldn’t protect her and
she had endless problems reaching her destination (including a very
rough flight during which people were praying for their lives!).

All this trouble could have been avoided had she heeded the fox' warning and checked her passport! The fox had told us to be smart, but we hadn’t been smart enough! (If you want to read more about another, even stranger encounter with fox, please visit the Fox Spirit Encounter Page!)

_This is just an example on how important it is to be open to the
messages from Spirit. There is much more to being a shaman than
attending a few workshops and taking your drum
out on the weekend. Being a shaman means to have a shamanic world view
and life style, and this should show in all aspects of one's life. It
means to seek to understand the deeper meaning of events in our lives,
from seemingly random encounters to the big things that happen to us,
such as accidents and disease. If everything is interconnected then
there can be no meaningless events or encounters. If an animal draws
your attention to it, or shows up repeatedly, reflect on what it wishes
to tell you. In time many things will be revealed to you through the
little messengers of the Great Spirit. But to be a real shaman you have
to fully understand the interconnectedness of all things, the One
Spirit behind all life. And not just understand it with your mind, but
with your heart! You have to shed the illusion of the material world
and go beyond, to the place where all life is one, where everything is
spirit. To be a real shaman you have to touch the mystery, and know the
One Spirit that manifests as myriads of beings, that is eternal and
indestructible, that is the source of all life, that is your very own
self!A shaman has experienced the Oneness and touched the Great Mystery!

Exploring the Otherworld

_As I mentioned earlier, the first step to becoming a shaman is usually to learn how to access and journey in the Otherworld. So let's explore the mysterious world of the shaman, the Otherworld together! Like our planet Earth, the Otherworld, has various regions, some more pleasant, others not so, some perfectly safe and others dangerous. And there are various denizens of those regions as well, friendly and unfriendly ones, helpful and hostile ones.

The most commonly known regions are the Underworld, Middle World and Upper World. Sadly, on most workshops this is all you ever hear about the Otherworld. Restricting ourselves to those three regions is a bit like naming northern Europe for the planet Earth! There is much more to the Otherworld than those -- admittedly very important -- three regions. It is also possibly to journey to parallel dimensions, such as the Faerie Realm for instance, or to lost worlds such as Atlantis or Lemuria. Working with those realms can be very rewarding but it is rarely taught. For all those who want to learn more, I am teaching advanced shamanic journeying in my workshops.

The articles below are to give you an overview of some of the regions of the Otherworld and what you may encounter there. Much more detailed information and first hand experience with advanced journeying is available on my shamanic workshops. All the information presented here on this website is authentic and my own work. I have endeavoured to give an in-depth introduction to journeying in different regions of the Otherworld, and most importantly, the articles below also contain rarely taught guidelines and precautions for safe journeying in the most common Otherworld regions.

To continue your excursion in the realm of spirit follow the links below. Enjoy!